Digital manga—more available than ever before. Both Weekly Shonen Jump and Kodansha have just joined Comixology and the Kindle store.

The digital Weekly Shonen Jump makes such favorites as One Piece, Bleach, Blue Exorcist available on the same day as the Japanese release throughout North America, the U.K., Ireland, South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand.

“Weekly Shonen Jump is a fan favorite magazine where emerging and long-running hit manga series are shown to the world first,” says Andy Nakatani, Editor-In-Chief of WeeklyShonen Jump, “We’re excited to expand the readership of this magazine to the comiXology and Kindle audience.”

“It’s amazing we live in an age where it’s possible for fans to read manga in English the same day as appears in Japan,” said Chip Mosher, comiXology VP of Communications & Marketing, “This is why we’re thrilled to share Weekly Shonen Jump on comiXology and Kindle as we’re now able to give fans access to the latest and greatest manga around.”

The Kodansha expansion makes more than 350 titles available including the massive hit Attack on Titan. These will also be available same day—and they have long been available on the Kindle.

“It’s wonderful to bring our deep manga library to comiXology and their passionate audience,” said Alvin Lu, General Manager of Kodansha Advanced Media, the Kodansha subsidiary in charge of its digital distribution. “We’re thrilled to provide a significant boost to comiXology’s manga selection with some of the most-talked-about new manga series, such asNoragami, The Seven Deadly Sins, and of course Attack on Titan.”

“Kodansha is a publisher that comiXology fans have been clamoring to read on our platform,” said David Steinberger, comiXology’s co-founder and CEO. “I’m a huge fan of Attack on Titan and can’t wait to gift the first volume to friends and family and have them experience this great series on our platform for the first time!”
The move to Kindle and digital is well underway, with even more publishers getting on board. This move is also a long-overdue acknowledgement that level digital downloads are the best way to combat piracy problems.

Heidi MacDonald is the founder and editor in chief of The Beat. In the past, she worked for Disney, DC Comics, Fox and Publishers Weekly. She can be heard regularly on the More To Come Podcast. She likes coffee, cats and noble struggle.

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Comments

Cool. Now it just needs Dark Horse’s licensed manga, although I think those might be print only. Berserk, for instance, is printed by DH but I think the digital distribution rights are held by Vertical Inc who also publish the excellent Gundam the Origin.